Spam is really popluar here. I read that in Hawaii, more cans are comsumed per person than in any other state. We haven't eaten at a Burger King (off base) or McDonalds since we've been here, but I've read that they actually have Spam on the menu. There's a Spam Jam festival in Waikiki every spring. The grocery stores have huge displays of Spam. Target and Wal-Mart have large sections of Spam cookbooks and keychains and hats. We've even seen Spam sushi. Inspired by the myriad Spam products, Jarrod actually bought a can. And fried it up and ate it. He seemed to think it was alright, but I won't even eat meat from TV dinners or chicken bits from my Chicken Noodle O's soup, much less processed meat that's been in a can for who-knows-how-long. When we first got here, we were intrigued by the abundance of Spam and Googled it. Apparently Spam is popular in many of the Pacific Islands; it brought to the region by WWII soldiers as part of their food rations and it became an instant hit with the locals.
There honestly aren't many things I enjoy about the local Hawaii news, but I do like the weather segment. They always show sunset pictures and talk about surfing conditions and wave heights. My favorite thing is the "high surf advisory" icon on the forecast. It cracks me up every time, the way the guy fell off his surf board and looks like he's about to get eaten by a massive, ferocious wave!
We've had to learn some new words since we arrived here in Hawaii. These are some of the most common Hawaiian words and phrases we've come across:
Kama'aina: locals Ohana: family Keiki: kids Mahalo: thank you Pupus: appetizers Aloha: hi, bye, farewell, also used to describe the atmopshere of the islands as in "aloha spirit" Tutu: grandmother Slippers: flip-flops Mele Kalikimaka: Merry Christmas Hau'oli Makahiki Hou: Happy New Year
I've noticed that many of the Hawaiian-sounding cities and street names start with W, K, P or A, which can make things very confusing... for instance, Waipio, Waipahu, Waimea, Wahiawa, Waialua and Waimanalo are a few of the many towns that start with the letter W. But that makes sense to me now; I recently read that the Hawaiian alphabet only has 12 letters: all the typical vowels, plus H, K, L, M, N, P, W.
I thought there were a few really funny commericals on the Super Bowl this year, but my favorite was actually NOT a funny ad, it was a cute one. I loved the Google "Parisian Love" commercial. What a clever idea! Here it is:
The ad I liked best from last year -- the Bridgestone commercial with the Potato Heads -- is one of my all-time favorite commericals ever.
One thing that really confuses me is how the FCC and the networks decide what is appropriate for TV. There was so much hullabaloo over the gay dating website commerical, which didn't make the cut. I don't know what the gay dating site ad entailed, but could it really have been that much more potentially offensive than some of the ads that DID air? There were two ads that centered around people in their underwear -- with plenty of close-ups -- and two ads showing women giving birth ("Mommy, I thought you said babies came from storks?"), an ad with a sperm fertilizing an egg, and another with talking babies who cheat each other and are "milkaholics." I understand homosexuality is a very divisive topic, but how come no one is outraged that their children saw a woman screaming in an inflatable pool during a water birth? That practically traumatized ME!
Another thing that annoyed me was all the controversy over the Tim Tebow "anti-abortion" ad. Having lived in the same town as Focus on the Family for many years -- and hearing about the supposed "controversy" for days -- I was a little afraid it would be an in-your-face "abortion is evil" type of commerical. But then it aired, and it was definitely not an in-yout-face ad. In fact, if I hadn't been bombarded with news stories about the ad for the past week, I wouldn't even have realized it had anything to do with abortion. I was already ticked off when I realized that all that blather over the commerical being offensive was simply a media invention. There WAS no controversy... until the media manufactured some (which is what today's media does best... take things out of context, blow things out of proportion, etc.). That, ultimately, was probably a FAR better advertisement for Focus on the Family's message than if the commerical had just aired without all the debate. Then I turn on the TV this morning and hear all about how the president of NOW, the National Organization for Women, said the Tebow commercial was promoting violence against women. What?! I understood their concern about such an ad airing during the Super Bowl (and agreed, actually), but now they're just making the organization look stupid.
The news was also full of complaints about the Career Builder commercial featuring an office full of people clad only in their underwear. People griped about how horrible it was to see those fat, pasty white people spilling out of their undergarments. But I actually applaud the ad for using ACTUAL, NORMAL people with REAL bodies, something we pretty much never see in the media these days.
P.S. This is my first time trying to post movies on the blog. Hope it works out!
For Christmas, my parents got us a wonderful gift -- a pocket-sized video camera. I've been trying it out for two months now and finally got around to putting the videos on the computer. I was a little disappointed in how they came out -- kind of blurry and choppy. I know this is a good camera though, so I'm sure the error was on my end. I'm going to sit down with the instruction manual and see what I can figure out. One video came out pretty good, though, and I posted it on YouTube. It's from one of our trips to the beach. Here's the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMP5h_y4gs0 Enjoy!
One of the things I love about Hawaii is the adundance of beautiful flowers. They are everywhere -- and I'm so jealous of people who have gorgeous flowering shrubs or trees in their yards. (We just have palm trees.) I read somewhere that many of Hawaii's plants and flowers are actually not native but were brought here by settlers. Interesting! Apparently Hawaii doesn't have all that many native species. In fact, there are only two mammals native to Hawaii, the monk seal (which I really hope to see in the wild here at some point) and the hoary bat. But back to the topic at hand: below are pictures of some common Hawaiian flowers as well as a few really neat, not-as-common ones.
This is my favorite flower that I've come across so far. We passed it when we were driving up Mount Tantalus and I made Jarrod stop the car so I could run back and take a picture of it. Despite tons of Googling, I can't figure out what it's called, but I think it's so gorgeous!
Hibiscus -- these are EVERYWHERE and come in an amazing array of colors.
Ginger flower. These are semi-common. I think they're used a lot in landscaping and gardening.
Canna -- this reminds me of blown glass.
Hawaiian cactus. (I don't know why this picture insisted on turning sideways -- sorry.)
Bougainvillea -- these flowering bushes are extremely common and come in all sorts of colors ranging from light orange to bright pink to purple. I loved them so much I bought a small plant for our front porch.
Bird of paradise. These are also fairly common.
One flower I really wanted to include is the plumeria, but I didn't have a good picture of one. The common ones are white with a yellow center and grow on trees. (There are some similar flowers in colors like pink and purple, and I assume those are also in the plumeria family.) They smell DIVINE and are very popular in leis. My neighbor has a plumeria tree in her yard, so I might have to sneak over and take some pictures!
Until I started dating Jarrod, I'd never really sampled much authentic Southern cooking. Some things didn't agree with my tongue, like collard greens. Yuck! But two Southern foods I fell in love with are fried okra and boiled peanuts. In case you don't know what a boiled peanut is, it's an extremely delicious, extremely high-sodium, extremely non-nutritious snack created by simmering raw peanuts in *very* salty water for several hours. (You can also add other spices -- I've seen Cajun and garlic flavors sold on the side of the road -- but Jarrod typically sticks with just salt.) This gives the peanuts a delightful firm-but-mushy consistency and a very unique flavor. Even Conan loves them! There is one thing I don't like about boiled peanuts though: they're totally addicting and there is absolutely no way you can eat just one!
